


Like Honey On the Tongue

by Morpheus626



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25061347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: My thanks to Rori @fl0wer-boy (on Tumblr) over on the K Company server for providing me the info that is the real Snafu’s middle name, which led to some inspiration for the TV-versions of him and Sledge.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Kudos: 4





	Like Honey On the Tongue

“People don’t even know what it means,” Snafu sighed. 

“Some people do, and you agreed to come to church with me every now and again-” 

“And I will,” he interrupted. “But you know how I feel about my first name, not everyone gets to know and use it, especially when I have a perfectly fine nickname!” 

“Look, for us, it’s fine, but at church…not everyone is okay with it, okay? I’m not asking you to change it, or to say that I won’t use it everywhere else, because I will! I know and I respect that you’d rather I use your nickname, that you’d rather most people do, but I can’t make the eighty-five year old grannies at church understand that. They don’t get it, and they won’t. You remember how I was a half hour late to the car after the last time you went with me?” Eugene asked.

“Yeah.” 

“That was because one of those grannies asked her grandson what your nickname meant, because she’d heard him say it before in moments of anger. He told her, she grabbed me after the service, and it took me that long to convince her that I didn’t need to drag you back in to have a talk with the priest about ‘your soul’ and ‘being proper’, because I know you don’t need that, but other people don’t. Other people judge when they don’t need to, and shouldn’t. I just…” Eugene sighed. “I don’t like hearing them talk about you like that. They don’t know you. But I can’t talk to every single one of them like I did her. So either you gotta come to church more so they can see it, can see you for you, or you gotta let me call you something else so the times you do come they aren’t assholes about it.” 

“Okay, sure, fine,” he snapped, though he knew he shouldn’t, Eugene wasn’t meaning to upset him. But he was pissed nonetheless, at the ridiculous ‘holier than thou’ people that seemed to be all over the town, and all knew Eugene and his family through the church or his father’s profession as a doctor or both. “Call me Allesandro then, if you wanna use somethin’ else so damn bad, I dare you.” 

“…Allesandro?” Eugene’s eyes were warm, curious, a small smile on his face.

“What? That’s my middle name, no one uses it and barely no one knows it. Don’t give a shit if the people round here know it,” he replied. “On earth is that look for?” 

Eugene was smiling wide now, blushing lightly. “It fits you. Plus…well, you know what it means?” 

“Nah. Mama said it was a French sorta version of Alexander. That’s as much as I know about it,” he said. He’d never thought to ask anything beyond that. 

“She’s right. And that names got a few meanings: guardian, defender, defender of men. Fits you,” Eugene said. 

“Oh yeah? Cause I was a soldier?” he asked. “I guess so, then.” 

“Yeah, but not just that, I mean…you defend me. Think there’s a lot you’d do to keep me safe, some of which I probably don’t even wanna know about,” Eugene laughed. “That’s what I mean, when I say it fits you.” 

He felt his face flush. “You’re right. And I owe you one, for keepin’ that old lady off my back.” 

“Nah. Just doin’ for you what I know you’d do for me. You’re really okay if I use it at church?” 

“You go for it, I give you permission,” he replied, counting in his head how many weeks it had been since his last time to church with Eugene. It had been awhile, longer than he’d intended since he knew it was important to Eugene. “How about Sunday, we try it out?” 

Eugene’s smile was perhaps one of the best things he could see, and this one shone brighter than the sun. 

It was worth getting up too goddamn early, wearing a suit he hated that was too goddamn warm for the always too warm church, and sitting while the church ladies fussed over them before and after. 

“We don’t see this one every Sunday,” one of the older ladies, maybe seventy, smiled sickly sweet, in a way he recognized as secretly saying “and you know exactly what we think about that.” 

“He’s a busy man, but he comes by when he can. I’m lucky to have such a good, hard-working-” 

“Friend, yes,” the lady interrupted, and he shared a look with Eugene. Friend was putting it rather mildly, though they were of course friends at the start and now. But Just Friends wasn’t correct, though he figured none of them at church had figured that out yet. 

“In any case, I’m glad he could be with me today,” Eugene continued, a bit tense now. He could see it in the corner of Eugene’s jaw, a grinding of the teeth. He knew Eugene might not completely snap and yell, but this lady was pushing it. 

“Mavis had told us you call this young man…well. I’m a proper woman, I don’t say such things…” the lady smirked. 

“Just a nickname, from my time in the war,” he spat. “Not much ‘proper’ over there, as I’m sure you’ll understand.” 

That shut her up for a moment, her eyes blinking rapidly as she reconfigured. “I…well…” 

“Allesandro here served with me. Best man to have by your side for anything, at all times,” Eugene said, and reached down to grab his hand, holding it tight. “Even here.” 

“…French? Where are you from…oh dear, I don’t want to mispronounce it,” the lady had flipped her script entirely, blushing now at him like he was some sort of romantic hero. “All-ess-an-dro? Have I got that right?” 

“Yeah. Uh. New Orleans, or near there at least. Family’s Cajun,” he replied, fighting back the frown her flip had inspired. 

“Cajun! Oh my,” she fanned herself with her church program. “Well, I think we’ll need you to bring this young man back again next Sunday, Eugene. Think I’d like to learn more about him, what you did in the war, and your family, oh and…” 

The lady went on, but he had stopped listening, and let Eugene take over responding. 

“Well now, he might be busy, but I’m sure if I ask nicely he might come back. Right, Allesandro?” Eugene’s voice saying his name brought him back to the conversation. 

“Yeah, just might. Long as Eugene here is with me,” he managed, but his mind wasn’t anywhere near a church. 

He let Eugene take the lead again, carefully pulling him out of the remaining crowd towards their car. 

Inside, he grinned as Eugene’s arm draped over his shoulders, the other hand on the wheel. “So? Was that okay?” 

“That was okay. More than okay,” he replied, letting his head drop onto Eugene’s shoulder. 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah. Like hearing you call me that.” 

“I mean…I can switch over to-” 

“Well,” he interrupted. “I still like my nickname more. But if you gotta use another name, I wanna hear that one.” 

Later in bed, it was what Eugene whispered to him, soft against his ear, then warm and begging after their night clothes had been tossed to the floor. It was a beautiful sound each time, and he knew it always would be so long as Eugene was the one saying it, the syllables dripping like honey from his tongue.


End file.
